


it's all love

by subwaywalls



Series: east of eden [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Found Family, Gen, Protective Dadza, kind of? it's something like that idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subwaywalls/pseuds/subwaywalls
Summary: The brothers each have their thing. Wilbur works miracles through song, Techno bleeds but never dies, and Tommy is all crackling energy.And as for their father?Everyone says Philza’s just human—but he’s more than that, really. He’s home.(He’s also, you know, not human at all.)
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit & Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Series: east of eden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006293
Comments: 57
Kudos: 1333





	it's all love

“How are we supposed to hide this?” Tommy hisses, and then winces when Wilbur tugs the bandage tighter. “Ow— _ ow _ , Wilbur, that hurts!” 

“Maybe if you didn’t stick your whole arm into the hive, we wouldn’t have that issue,” Wilbur snarks back. His voice comes out raspier than usual, hoarse with overuse, but it doesn’t stop him from continuing to grumble under his breath.

Tommy makes a face at him. “It worked, didn’t it?” Messily, as expected of electrocuting a whole nest of oversized insectoids, but it got the job done and even set the whole thing on fire so they didn’t have to manually tear everything down, too. So what if a spider or two managed to bite him before he escaped? It clearly did more good than harm.

“It  _ was _ pretty cool,” Techno says. “But Phil’s still gonna lose it if he sees those giant gashes in your arm. Wil, if you could just sing us better—”

“I would have done it already, yes, thank you for the suggestion, Techno,” Wilbur says with a roll of his eyes. “I’m all sung out. From putting out the fire that Tommy started, remember?”

Tommy decides to ignore that one. While he waits for Wilbur to finish wrapping his arm, he watches Techno switch out his current towel for a new one. The pile of blood-soaked towels are now higher than the clean pile. “Is it not healing yet, Techno?”

Techno sighs, pressing the thick cloth to his side. “It is, just  _ really _ slowly. I think there was something in those stingers, and my body’s trying to bleed that stuff out before it closes the wound.”

“Yuck,” says Tommy, wrinkling his nose.

“We might have to fake sick for you if that doesn’t stop soon,” Wilbur tells Techno. “Phil’s gonna be home in an hour at most.”

“He can always tell when we’re lying, though,” Techno says. “I can just say I’m busy.”

“How is that not a lie?”

“Because I  _ am _ busy. Busy stopping blood from getting everywhere.”

Tommy snorts. “Oh, yeah,” he says, and gestures to his arm. “This? This is just a bug bite. No need to worry, Phil, I know the whole arm is wrapped up like a broken bone, but it’s not that bad, I promise.”

“Say you scraped it,” Wilbur suggests, his voice dying halfway through the sentence. He clears his throat, and continues, “You technically did, just on a big insect mouth instead of, uh, the ground or whatever.”

How in the  _ world _ they’ve gotten so far without telling Philza about their… ‘extracurriculars’ is beyond Tommy, honestly. He chalks it up to the fact that Philza is very nice and understanding of privacy and incredibly trusting when they’re not outright lying.

It’s nice—makes him feel loved and cared for in a way his past homes haven’t—but it does feel kind of scummy sometimes. They  _ should _ tell him, but he’s already working very hard to provide for them and their sometimes eccentric needs, and burdening him with all their paranatural stuff seems like it’d just make it harder on him.

(And maybe,  _ maybe _ there’s that little irrational paranoia in all of them, the thought that if Philza knew, that would be the last straw on the proverbial camel’s back, and…)

“What’s your excuse going to be, Wilbur?” Tommy says, refocusing at the concern at hand.

“I fucking yelled a lot,” Wil says. “Easy. I  _ did _ yell a lot.”

“Does singing count as yelling?” Techno wonders.

“It does when I’m belting at the top of my lungs and the lyrics mostly consist of  _ fire please stop now, hurry up and put yourself out, don’t burn down the city we’ll be so fucked if this gets out of control _ ,” Wil says in a breathy approximation of the tune he’d used earlier that day. And then, in a low rasp, “I saw that eye roll, Tommy.”

“I mean,” Tommy says, “I wouldn’t say that was your best work—”

Wilbur finishes wrapping his arm and flicks him, only to wince when a small shock zaps him in response. “Don’t start with the static, I swear—”

The sound of the door opening distracts them immediately, and despite the secrecy Tommy can’t help but brighten at the sound of Philza’s voice from below, calling out, “I’m home!”

“Welcome back!” Tommy hollers, as Techno stares dead-eyed at the incriminating pile of bloody towels.

“Hey dad!” Wil suddenly pipes up, and winces as it strains his voice. He makes a gesture at his brothers like,  _ clean this up _ , and starts downstairs. “Phil, dad, I’m  _ starving _ and I found this recipe I think we can use and I kind of want to try it right now.”

“What happened to your voice?”

“Lost it from yelling, actually,” and anything else he says is quickly lost as he lowers his voice upon going downstairs.

Tommy and Techno exchange looks, and then Techno says, “Well, good news, I need a new towel.”

“ _ How _ is that good news, Techno.”

“Means I can make a very Normal Appearance for a few minutes before hiding away in my room for the rest of the night, Tommy. The bad news is that we gotta wash these towels ASAP.”

Tommy groans.

* * *

It’s a busy evening of allaying worries, but a pleasant one nonetheless. The children turn in long after dusk, tuckered out from their adventure.

This is what happens while they sleep:

In a back alley not far from the house, a single note rings out. Light pours from it, flame lapping gently at concrete and brick like waves upon a shore, gold and scarlet against the dark of night.

They do not spill over into the streets beyond. Not a single drop of power is forgotten or wasted, and the glowing alley is still shadowed to anyone not already in it.

For those already there, though—well. They are all too aware.

“So you’re the ones threatening my kids,” says a voice in what sounds like gentle mercy, but the smile that comes with it bares too many teeth to not hold fury behind them. Those words were not a question; they are nearly a demand.

In response, the feral things of the abyss snap and snarl. The curtain of light constricts around them, forming an ethereal cage with only one way to go. A purposeful exit has been left open to them, should they choose to revoke their intent and back down with the remnants of their hive intact. 

But their leader is silent, and though they quake and shiver when the light falls upon them, they do not leave.

Philza narrows his eyes. From his back comes the sound of feathers, or bells, or cosmic dust being gently blown off a forgotten world. Wings unfurl and unfold and don’t  _ stop _ expanding, splaying wider, wider, further than the constraints of a physical form, dipping into planes so far away that they collect stars at the tips, glittering and pale against the space-dark expanse. 

“This place is a haven,” Philza says. There are hundreds of wings for millions of feathers behind-around-within him, and there has always been a sword in his hands. It’s a pretty silver thing, long and sharp and ringing out the second note of a celestial song. His voice cuts through, unyielding as he declares, “All your conflicts reside outside of these walls. I will not touch whatever it is that happens in the open, but along those same laws,  _ nothing _ may follow my sons inside.”

There’s a low rumble amongst the creatures. Once upon a time, they might have resembled spiders, but to Philza’s piercing gaze, they just look… broken. Their carapaces are pockmarked with burns and gashes, and deeper in, their fractured minds and shattered souls look like stained glass with half the colors blown out.

This is not an operational hivemind. This is the twitching of a beast already dead.

A warm pride kindles in Philza’s chest. He will have to remind his sons to wrap up their loose ends a little better, so they don’t get followed home like this, but to take out the trunk of an abyssal colony is no small feat. When they’re ready, he’ll tell them how proud he is, how much he loves them for who they are and what they choose to do with the power they have.

But that may not be for a while. Philza won’t rush them; they’ll come to him when they’re ready. For now, he’s got a horde of creatures to face, a wounded swarm that isn’t quite lost beyond sentience. Not yet. 

Between clicks and hisses and salivating mandibles, a concept manages to form:  _ They challenged our advance. They razed our home. We raze theirs. _

The fire  _ roars _ . In an instant, it surges from lazy sunset honey to white-hot anger, searing words of destruction in the language of creation into the pavement. The creatures shrink in on themselves as the swirling words and twisting characters dance ever closer, flames blazing at their ankles and nipping at their shadows.

“I think not,” Philza says, softly, his anger all but crystallized in the molten blaze. He has yet to move, but the sun rises in his blade while the moon watches overhead. “This is your last warning. Step any further with intent to harm, and I will rend you limb from miserable limb.”

_ You may try, _ says the bubbling silk and liquid web in their mouths, and as one they rally together, because where there is light and flame there is also shadow and ash, and they have nothing to lose and everything to destroy—

The escape built into the woven light and flame slides shut. Mercy is a grace but justice is holy, and Philza’s innumerable wings flutter softly with all the force of a hurricane as the creatures swarm in.

A warning wind howls at them, blowing back the weaker attempts, but it doesn’t take long for them to throw themselves at Philza again with their fangs bared and stingers arched. They push through the gale only to meet a wall a voided feathers that  _ pulls them in _ with the gravity of a dying star. Unable to free themselves, they writhe like ants on flypaper and scream as it burns and burns and burns.

Philza closes his eyes in the center of his own storm and brings the edge of his sword to his lips. Then, so quiet that he is the only one in all of creation to hear, he says, “ _ Awaken _ , — - - - .”

The name soars off his tongue in an intonation beyond hearing, and from within holy steel the scarlet sun screams free—

(They say an angel with a singing blade of fire guards the gates to paradise.)

* * *

Tommy yawns, stumbling down the stairs with bleary eyes. The halls smell of bacon and eggs and syrupy waffles, and his father is sizzling something at the stove. He’s the only one there, which means Wilbur and Techno must be sleeping in, the lucky bastards. 

“Morning, Phil.”

“Good morning.” He smiles at Tommy, sunny and warm. “You guys forgot to clean up yesterday.”

“Aw, we did?” Come to think of it—yeah, Phil had asked them to help clean the kitchen, hadn’t he? Though that was before the whole insect hive thing, and Tommy had been a little too distracted to remember it in the aftermath of that fight. “Sorry. We’ll help clean up today.”

“I got it this time, but try not to forget for next time, alright?”

“Okay.”


End file.
